Computer networks are widely used to exchange information among computing devices. If there are problems along a path within the network (e.g., network problems, routing problems, congestion, etc.), then users of the network may experience problems accessing services provided by the network (e.g., service interruptions or slowdowns).
In a packet-switched network that connects many computing devices, there are typically multiple potential paths through the network from a given sending device to a given receiving device. The intermediate network devices make routing decisions to decide which path a network packet traveling from a sending device to a destination device will take. Many strategies exist for choosing a path, such as choosing the path with the lowest cost, least number of hops, lowest latency, best quality of service, etc. While choosing an appropriate path between a source and a destination can result in efficient delivery of network packets, situations can arise that disrupt network traffic along a particular path, such as congestion, failure of a network connection, etc. While a path can be changed once a failure is detected, network traffic may be interrupted or delayed during the time it takes to identify the failure and select an alternate path to avoid the failure. In such situations, there can be a number of sending devices that cannot communicate with the destination device due to the failure along the particular path.